Guidance
by corgismile
Summary: The tenth Doctor has taken a job as a university lector to be able to further investigate some mysterious readings the TARDIS has received. In the process he meets Miranda, a girl who is yet to find her place in the universe.
1. Chapter 1

She combed her hair one last time, smiled at herself in the mirror and closed her eyes in the sunlight, ah the smell of a summer morning.

As she put on her boots and walked out the door she was thinking about how wonderful life was when you allowed yourself to have hopes and dreams. Or at least how wonderful it could seem, when your blood sugar is high and the sun is shining.

She headed down the street with a newfound confidence; it was one of those rare occasions in her life when she actually felt pretty and desirable.

Unfortunately this illusion was shattered as soon as she entered the school building. At best, she was ignored when meeting or walking past someone. But usually she was met by frowns, judging looks and disgusted faces. She thought to herself that if there was any justice at all in life, she would be successful later in life, that one day, someone would see that she is so much bigger on the inside and appreciate that.

The school was a really old church like building, made entirely out of stone. Due to the very high ceiling, echoes of hallway conversations, laughter and papers turning was a constant soundtrack to everyday life at the university. Miranda thought it was sort of comforting, in a way.

When she finally made it to the lecture hall she felt a bit more at ease, as in there no one could assault her without risking the professor noticing them. She was one of the very first students to arrive to the lecture, which in itself was not unusual because she simply felt safer that way, but this very particular class was something she had been looking forward to since the day she signed up for it.

The academic world was one she had always wanted to be a part of. And being an outsider was nothing new to Miranda, so it didn't really matter. It had always been a part of her life as well. It still hurt a bit of course, because subconsciously she had been hoping to finally find a place where she could feel completely accepted. She tried to remind herself that one could never have it all, and that what mattered in the end would be that she was actually pursuing her dream.

She was stolen from her thoughts and brought back into the hall by the new professor closing the laptop that had been covering his head since Miranda walked in with a snapping motion.

He looked upon the almost embarrassingly low amount of students with a slightly eccentric look on his face. The man was not what Miranda had expected at all. She had not been fully aware of the fact that she had actually had any expectations of her new teacher at all apart from him or her having a lot of knowledge about English literature.

She had perhaps expected him to be much older, because all the professors she had been taught by before had all been at well into their fifties. This man had the look of being tops 40 years old, but was probably much younger than that. He was a slender, tall man with glasses and a brown pinstripe suit. His hair was chocolate-brown and all over the place, with a sort of gravity defying look to it.

She suddenly realized that he was also staring at her. And that her mouth was gasping. She snapped it closed and started fiddling with her books. There goes all prospects of making a good impression on my new teacher, she thought.

"Alright people! I'm Dr. John Smith! Now let's get started! Looks like it's only going to be the five of us. Just as well! Less confusing that way ! Anyways, don't be shy to ask questions, I'm not as dangerous as I look!" the new professor claimed with a grin.

The class was dead silent. You could have heard a needle falling to the floor. The grin on his face faded into a frown.

"Okay, let's get right into Shakespeare, one of the greatest minds that ever was on this planet."

But the small class was not going to learn anything about Shakespeare that day, because before the professor could start his lecture, there was a loud bang and the entire building started shaking and a large crack started to develop in the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

"What do I do?!"Miranda screeched.

Dr. John Smith confidently shouted "Act like everything is perfectly normal!".

"What!?"

"Because I am 100 % sure that it's not! "

His voice began to crack. Typical. Them stupid men, always trying to act cool, Miranda noted.

The few students that had been in the room in the first place had been stranded on the other side of the crack, and were now pressed against the wall. One of them had gotten a nosebleed and another looked as if he was about to faint. Miranda realized that she would have to either leap across the crack or make her way over the rail that separated the class from the professor.

Before she had made up her mind her new teacher had made his way over the railing and was now pulling out a strange silvery object which he pointed towards the crack, it was a weird-looking gadget with a blue light and a very annoying sound effect. Perhaps some sort of flashlight, she pondered.

"Sorry but you will need to get away from the crack! It could start expanding again any time!" he claimed.

"It was probably just an earthquake. Don't you think?" Miranda explained, perhaps he was not familiar with the area's more or less frequent problems with minor earthquakes. He could not have been from around here anyway, the village was not a very big place and she had really never seen him before. She would have remembered a face like his.

"Nope. This is a bit worse than an earth quake I'm afraid." He snapped off the flashing device and put it back in his pocket with a concerned wrinkle on his forehead.

"You lot at the back, use the bloody door and get out of the building, and tell everyone you see the same thing. Just get out! Now!" he commanded his class before turning to Miranda.

"What's your name?"

"Miranda, Sir."

"I am so very sorry Miranda."

"Sorry for whHHHHHHHAAAAAA!?"

Before she could finish the sentence the strange man had pulled her over the railing, grabbed her wrist and started pulling her along what she by the sign on the swing door they passed found out must have been the teacher's corridor.

She stumbled along trying to keep up with him, but he was running so very fast and her boots were definitely not made for running. All of a sudden the floor started shaking again, and before she could even react she had fallen to the floor and lost his hand.

Miranda woke up on a strange metallic floor, looking into a high, sort of out of this world ceiling. She reached out with her arms behind her, trying to sit up straight.

"Oh, good! You're awake at last! Are you feeling alright? Does it hurt? It was quite a fall you had there."

It was that strange new teacher again.

"Uhm, yeah I think I'm alright. What happened? Where exactly are we, Sir?"

"Oh don't do that" he got that wrinkle on his forehead again, scrunching up his face in disgust.

"I'm The Doctor by the way, I just needed a more human name to get the employment."

"Human name? But what? Sir you are not making any sense."

"Oh stop it with the "Sir" will you, it's ridiculous."

"Well it's not ridiculous to me! Now you need to tell me exactly where we are and how we got here before I go mental!"

"Oh sorry! I'm so sorry! Welcome to the TARDIS. I carried you here, that's that. And now you're going home so no need to worry."

"TARDIS? What's that your secret cellar for kidnapping innocent students is it?"

"It's my ship, travels through time and space. Very convenient!"

Miranda was getting upset. The man she thought looked so attractive at first sight was obviously an escaped mental patient of the nearby hospital, and not her new teacher.

"So if this is a spaceship where was it parked? How come no one's noticed it? Why did you take me here?"

"In my office of course! No one's been in there looking. It's dimentionally transcendental. If you ever see a blue box parked on the street, that'd be me." He rambled confidently.

"And I saved you from the school, you're very welcome. The place was being pulled apart and drawn down under the earth's crust. All gone now." He continued, and Miranda thought she could catch a glimpse of pure anguish in his eyes. Maybe he was telling the truth after all, by the look of this place, nothing seemed impossible anymore.


End file.
